


on the twelfth day of christmas

by Lire_Casander



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mentions of Forrest Long - Freeform, Mentions of Maria DeLuca, a tiny bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:27:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27978846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander
Summary: on christmas eve, there’s a huge tree standing outside of the airstream
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 20
Kudos: 57
Collections: 12 Days Of Malex 2020





	on the twelfth day of christmas

**Author's Note:**

> beta’ed by [manesalex](https://archiveofourown.org/users/manesalex). i'm so grateful for you, honey. you know, you've done much more than beating this for me: you've given me back the will to write more malex!
> 
> title from _the twelves days of christmas_
> 
> thank you very much to everyone who has taken part in the [malexsanta exchange](https://malexsanta.tumblr.com/) this year! merry christmas, everyone!

Growing up, Michael never had a real celebration during Christmas. He remembers the holidays at his different foster homes — the smoky memories from the methheadsʼ trailer, the cold living room from the house he got his last name from, the cross on his forearm from the group home — and none of those images forever etched in the seams of his mind can overshadow the scene he has the immense privilege of witnessing right now, as he steps outside of his trailer on Christmas Eve. 

Snow is falling slowly, almost lazily, covering the steps to his Airstream in a cozy whiteness that he doesn’t want to disturb. Astonished, Michael looks around him, not quite believing what his eyes are showing him. 

There’s a huge tree standing in the middle of the junkyard, its green branches showing a bit of white already, as though it has been standing there the whole night. Michael checks the time — it's barely seven in the morning — and shakes his head. Whoever has brought the tree here needed to drag it in throughout the night, throughout the cold and the beginning of the snow storm that had broken down sometime in the wee hours of the night. There are no decorations brightening the tree, only a beige envelope stuck to one of the branches, right in Michael’s line of sight. He looks around, trying to make sense of whatʼs going on, but when he doesn’t find any answers to his unasked questions, Michael flies down the last three steps of his trailer and snatches the envelope from the branch with shaky fingers. He regrets not having worn a sweater; with almost an afterthought, he commands one of the hoodies Isobel has insisted he wears when heʼs working, even though he tried to convince her that whatever article of clothing he wears to work would end up destroyed by the grime and the constant friction underneath the vehicles. 

When the hoodie hugs his shoulders, Michael decides to open the envelope. It isn’t sealed, so he just has to lift the tip and he finds a sheet with a few words written down, which he devours. 

_On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me my very first Christmas tree_

Michael looks around, but there's no one in sight. Not even Sanders seems to be out in the junkyard. Michael is all alone.

He stares up and down the tree, one finger tapping his chin as he thinks. He isn’t sure who could have sent him a giant Christmas tree when he doesn’t even celebrate the holidays — Isobel apparently had given up on trying to convince him to take part in the festivities years ago, but this can only be her doing. 

Michael carefully folds the letter and the envelope and places them in his back pocket before going about with his day — he anticipates multiple calls for both stranded cars in the snow and cars being tuned up just in time for the holidays, and he still has some cars and trucks he needs to work with that have been piling up the past few days. He needs all his energy today, he canʼt afford being distracted by the huge fir tree currently sitting outside his trailer. 

“Guess this explains the whole ordeal with the ornaments these days,” he sighs out loud. 

For the past twelve days, heʼs been finding small parcels with decorations and ornaments — candy canes and crystal balls and figurines and even a silver star to top a tree that Michael hadn’t had until now. He’s been wondering for days about the identity of the person behind the gifts, even though the only hint he got was the messages inside the envelopes stuck to the boxes — a modified line of the song _The Twelve Days of Christmas_ that Michael has always heard Isobel humming while decorating her own house. 

He’s thought that it was her behind the gifts, but he's been too busy with the preseason business flow that he hasnʼt brought it up lately in conversation with his sister. Not that they have been meeting often for their ritual coffee in the mornings every other day, Michael realizes. They’ve both been busy, and whenever Michael ended up at the Crashdown for his coffee date with Isobel, she managed to slip away and yielded her seat to the one and only Alex Manes, because the Airman had happened to be around — and alone — at those particular moments. 

Not that Michael has anything to complain about in that case. 

He’s been wanting to spend more time with Alex, ever since the news of his breakup with Forrest had reached him. But he wanted to be careful, not giving too much away from what he feels in order not to scare Alex off. 

Michael shakes the memories of their recent run-ins before he steps away from the tree. He isn’t one to celebrate Christmas — he didn’t have a reason to be cheerful while growing up, and as an adult he finds it absurd to dive into a happiness he doesn’t share. He doesn’t really understand how Isobel has thought it was a good idea to leave him tree decorations when she knows he wonʼt be putting them up, not even now that he has a tree. 

Michael makes a mental note about calling Isobel later about the tree before he dives into work. 

He forgets about his call to Isobel after the third car that shows up in less than half an hour with a flat tire and an almost hysterical driver. He has his hands full when he hears someone clearing their throat somewhere in the vicinity of the car Michael is currently underneath of. He slides out, wiping his hands on his already ruined white t-shirt — hoodie discarded almost at the very beginning of his shift — and blinks at the sudden light attacking him. 

“Alex?” he asks, unsure. 

There’s a flicker of a smile on those lips Michael knows well despite not having kissed them for so long — it's like riding a bike; Michael doesn’t think he will ever be able to forget their taste. 

“Is everything alright?” Michael asks. Every single time in the past few months that Alex has come to the junkyard, it’s been because something had come up with Project Shepherd. Michael fears that the truce they have been going through — after Jesseʼs death and Mr. Jonesʼ defeat — has been broken somehow. 

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex rushes to say. “There’s no danger looming over us, and I don’t need an oil change,” he adds almost laughing, when Michael was about to interject. 

“Good to know,” Michael says. The silence falls upon them for a moment. 

“I, uh, Sanders told me youʼd be back here,” Alex starts. “I was wondering whether you wanted to go grab a bite after your shift.” 

Michael bites down on his lip. They have been dancing around each other for a few months, after Maria and Forrest and everything that happened between them. And it's not that he doesn’t want to go have lunch with Alex — Michael would _kill_ for that second chance he doesn’t feel he deserves. It’s that they have been walking on eggshells for so long that Michael isn’t sure he knows how to navigate a world where he doesn’t need to hide his feelings for Alex — everythingʼs in the open now, after the song and the weeks that followed. 

“I still have a few hours left,” he replies, almost apologetic. “But Iʼd love to.” 

“I don’t really want to drive all the way back downtown on my own,” Alex mutters. “Is there somewhere I can wait?” he asks in a soft voice, nodding mostly to himself. 

“The Airstreamʼs open,” Michael offers. “It’s too cold for you to wait outside anyway. There’s beer in the fridge.” 

Alex smiles brightly. “Thanks.” 

“I will rush here,” Michael promises. 

And he does. He spends the four or five minutes it takes Alex to retreat back into the Airstream through the snow — no one’s any the wiser if Michael projects a bit of balance to keep Alex from sliding across the ground — before he gets back underneath the car he was working on before Alex came around. 

Forty-three minutes and three cars later, Michael wipes his hands off on a dirty rag before heading to the office where he knows Sanders is. He enters the space without knocking, standing in silence for a moment as he watches Sanders shaping a piece of wood into a small tree. 

“It looks good,” he points out softly. “Iʼm glad you moved from metal to wood.” 

“Thanks,” Sanders replies without looking up. “I think you have someone waiting for you.” 

“I wanted to wish you Merry Christmas,” Michael smiles when Sanders looks up. “Will you go to Isobel’s party tonight?”

“And risk her wrath if I don’t?” Sanders smiles, his good eye twinkling. “I’ll be there. Now go, before your man freezes to death in that tincan you call home.”

“He’s not my man!” Michael splutters indignantly. He would love for nothing more than for Sanders to be right, but as much as Michael dreams of it, he knows it’s not possible right now. They are only friends — and Michael is happy with that so far. 

“Curious how you haven’t defended your tinhouse,” Sanders snickers. Michael shakes his head in defeat.

“I’ll see you later then.”

“You better not go alone, or else Isobel will have your head on a silver platter!” Sanders calls after him, but Michael is too busy making it through the snow that has somehow come to set.

He doesn’t reach the Airstream. Instead, he stops dead in his tracks upon seeing Alex standing outside of the trailer with a box in his hands. He’s looking at the giant tree that takes up all the space with a dazed gleam in his eyes.

“Hey, Alex,” Michael calls out. “What are you doing out here? It’s freezing!”

“Why haven’t you decorated your tree?” Alex questions, lifting slightly the box with all the ornaments that Michael has been receiving for twelve days straight. “You have a box full of _this_.”

“Isobel’s been sending me one ornament a day for eleven days,” Michael shrugs. “Along with a note, a line from that Christmas song. The tree showed up today.”

Alex looks at him bewildered. “Did you think it was Isobel all along?” he asks.

There’s something in his voice — in the way Alex speaks as though it is completely insane that Isobel has been leaving Christmas treats along with sweet messages — that makes Michael rethink his own stance on this mystery. Sure, he’s been mulling over the gifts and the notes for days; sure, he hasn’t talked to Isobel about it because his sister keeps disappearing whenever they’re together for more than five minutes; sure, the handwriting from the notes isn’t exactly Isobel’s. Michael is pretty sure that, as much as she loves Christmas, Isobel Evans wouldn’t wake up at an ungodly hour on Christmas Eve to leave a huge fir tree at his doorstep for him to decorate with the ornaments. 

“It could only have been her, right?” Michael finally says in a thin thread of voice. “I mean, I don’t—”

Alex sighs, kicking at the snowed ground with his black boots. Michael notices then the soft blush on his cheeks, the way his eyes are cast down to his feet, how his fingers are clutching the cardboard box until his knuckles turn white. “Yeah, well, I see why you would’ve thought it was her.”

“It was you,” Michael exclaims, mentally kicking himself for not having connected the dots before. “It was you all along. I knew Isobel couldn’t bring up this tree on her own!”

Alex stares at him in silence; Michael can see a mix of amusement and dread in those brown eyes that have been haunting him ever since they both were seventeen. Everything falls into place in this moment — the handwriting that was familiar but not quite as though the person writing had wanted to mask their style, the romance oozing from some of the notes, the feeling of _home_ he’d felt whenever he’d stared at those ornaments that seemed to have been selected carefully.

He should have known. He should have listened to his heart — he should have followed his gut and confronted Isobel sooner, so they could have had much more time to dwell on why Alex has been sending him gifts.

Alex misinterprets his silence. He leaves the box on top of one of the already white chairs and takes a step backwards. “I, uhm, I’ll leave you to it. I’m sorry, I didn’t want to intrude or bother you. I should have known better.”

Michael might be slow on the uptake, but he’s moving before his mind can register. He suddenly doesn’t want Alex to leave, not after saying those words, not _ever_. “Alex, Alex, wait!” he calls after the Airman, who halts near his own SUV, parked next to the Airstream. “I want to show you something.”

Alex doesn’t turn around. Michael reaches out with his mind, opening the door to the trailer and making another smaller box float in the air until it reaches his hands. “Would you turn around, please?” he says softly. “I have something for you.”

Alex obliges, slowly turning back to Michael, a surprised look on his face when he sees the box in Michael’s hands. He doesn’t say anything when Michael opens the lid and takes one ornament out of that box — it’s a small snowflake made out of tinsel and metal, and it’s evident that it’s handmade. Michael is quite proud of how it has turned out. 

“I’ve been wanting to give this to you for ages,” he whispers, suddenly unsure. “I’ve been working on this, knowing that there wouldn’t be anyone else I’d rather share this tradition with. I know you never really had happy holidays growing up, and I wanted to give it to you.”

“You—” Alex clears his throat as he takes a step forward, one trembling finger grazing the snowflake. “You made this for me?”

“I made the whole box,” Michael announces. “For you.”

“Because you wanted me to have a happy holiday for once?” When Michael nods hesitantly, Alex has the audacity of laughing. “That’s why I did all of this,” he explains, gesturing towards the tree and the box on the chair. “I wanted to give you a reason to celebrate Christmas. You deserve it.”

Michael shakes his head when Alex takes that final step between them, catching the snowflake in his hand. They stare at each other for a brief second — there’s so much to read in Alex’s eyes that Michael feels dizzy, but he still manages to try and convey everything he’s feeling in one longing stare. He thinks he might combust from all the love he’s feeling.

“You, uh,” Alex starts at the same time as Michael asks, “Would you mind if we—”

They both chuckle, and Michael feels bold enough to grab Alex’s hand and lead him towards the tree. They stand in front of it, and wordlessly they begin picking up ornaments and placing them on the branches, Michael using his powers to reach the higher ones so Alex doesn’t need to stretch. There’s even a trail of lights around the branches by the time they finish. They laugh and they talk, and they don’t even notice how time flies until the night falls upon them. 

And if their hands touch, and if their fingers intertwine while they’re staring up at the illuminated tree with all the ornaments in place, no one has to know. There will be plenty of time later — when Isobel catches the news and gives them hell for not having realized it sooner — but for now they’re happy standing among the snowed grounds of the junkyard, holding hands and allowing the stars to shower them with the dreams and wishes they once were brave enough to ask for.


End file.
